Three Polish ministers and the parliament speaker submitted their resignations in connection with a taping scandal, Poland's Prime Minister Ewa Kopacz announced on Wednesday. Secret recordings of government ministers' conversations were leaked this week.

The PM announced that the three ministers who decided to quit
their positions are the health, treasury and sports ministers.
Several other
politicians, including the Speaker of the Parliament, Radoslaw
Sikorski, as well as a chief adviser to the Prime Minister and a
special services coordinator, also resigned.

Prime Minister Kopacz
also indicated that she would fire Prosecutor General Andrzej
Seremet, AP reported. The investigation with the ministers
involved was led by Seremet, and Kopacz said it was slow-going.
She also mentioned she did not accept the prosecutor's report on
why the classified files from the probe had been leaked to the
public.

The three ministers were secretly taped during private restaurant
meetings in Warsaw in 2013 and 2014. While the investigation is
still continuing, the illegal wiretaps have been leaked onto
publicly available platforms, including Facebook this week.

Having apologized to the voters for what they heard on the
recordings, Kopacz said that she had talked to the politicians
who appeared on the tapes and said that action needed to be taken
that "could not wait." These politicians "showed
responsibility for the state," having decided to quit their
posts, the Polish Radio quoted Kopacz as saying.

Polish businessman Zbigniew Stonoga published more than 2,500
pages of secret documents. He has been reportedly fighting a
long-running battle with the authorities. The confidential
reports from the investigation included top-secret information
concerning the personal details of state security officers, as
well as senior officials, including ministers and conversations
in restaurants.

The leaked tapes reveal politicians making inappropriate jokes
and indiscreet comments about colleagues and foreign leaders. The
head of the prime minister's office Jacek Cichocki has called the
publication "the biggest leak in history,"
Inside-Poland.com reported.

An election campaign is continuing in the country, with
parliamentary elections to both the Senate and the Sejm (Poland’s
lower house) planned for October. Kopacz's Civic Platform party
has seen a slump in popularity recently, with the Prime Minister
saying she needs to restore voter trust.